Using the current promotional site for his new movie to spark the larger project he envisions, Errol Morris plans to create an interface in which clicking on each photo pulls up its context and circumstances.

Oscar winner plans photo site

Since Abu Ghraib first came to the world’s attention in 2004, nearly 300 photographs of Iraqi prisoner abuse have been shown to the public. But soon an enormous archive of new material — including more than 1,500 other photos, unredacted court papers and interview transcripts — will be posted online by filmmaker Errol Morris, whose latest documentary “S.O.P.: Standard Operating Procedure” examines the scandal in horrific detail.

“I’d like all this material to be seen,” says Morris, who shot an estimated 200 hours of interviews for his two-hour film and used much of the extra material as research for an accompanying book scheduled for release later this year. The Academy Award-winning filmmaker (for “The Fog of War”) says he’s currently negotiating with several universities to host the large collection.

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Using the current promotional site for his new movie to spark the larger project he envisions, Morris plans to create an interface in which clicking on each photo pulls up its context and circumstances — who took it, who else was present when was it shot and any salient testimony made to the commissions investigating Abu Ghraib. Morris sees his website as a growing historical archive, with new information added as more participants and witnesses come forward to speak.

Morris’ new film was publicly unveiled last month at the prestigious Berlin International Film Festival, where it became the first documentary to ever be nominated for the top award. (It ended up winning a jury grand prize instead.) Opening in several U.S. cities on April 25, the film will roll out to more theaters in May. Raw, brutal and unrelenting, it is also a vivid tone poem recounting the stories behind the well-known photographs and an attempt to uncover the truth of what happened outside the frame.

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“We think somehow we know what Abu Ghraib is about because we’ve seen the photographs,” says Morris, “and I believe the photographs do not really tell us the real story. The photographs are both cover-up and exposé. The element of the cover-up is unknown, I suppose because it was covered up. It’s as simple as that. … I don’t think there ever will be justice until parts of the story are made public, and I am trying very hard to do that.”

Morris says few, if any, members of the public are aware, for example, that children were kept at the prison as hostages, ostensibly in order to make family members talk.

Morris also feels the popular perception of Abu Ghraib has been colored by both political agendas. “The left and the right — and I don’t think it makes much difference here — all assume they know what’s in the photographs,” he says. “In that sense, it goes beyond politics. Yes, the left will say it’s because of this administration’s policies, while the right will say it’s a few bad apples. But both [sides] stop at the photographs, because there’s a feeling we know what they mean and what they’re about. … I don’t think it’s been known at all.”

Whether they be big-budget narratives featuring major stars or low-budget documentaries, recent films about the Middle East have had a rough time at the box office.